


not as will be, but that is

by endquestionmark



Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-23
Updated: 2016-03-23
Packaged: 2018-05-28 12:48:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,019
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6329851
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/endquestionmark/pseuds/endquestionmark
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The restraints will hold. Matt has a hard time picking out different sounds against the background of hospital rush at the best of times, the faint creak of wheels and the electric hum of monitoring devices and the endless restless quiet, but he can hear the straps and the cuffs, the sticky shift of the plastic ties at Frank’s wrists — the sticky shift of the bones in Frank’s foot — the way that Frank’s breathing catches just a little, wet, on every exhale, on the blood in the back of his throat. Once Matt notices, he can’t help but listen.</p>
            </blockquote>





	not as will be, but that is

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings: the usual roster of Daredevil-standard pain, religion, and identity kink, now with omnidirectional consent issues. Canon-divergent as of the end of episode 4, and at best canon-adjacent for the rest of the season. Thanks to [Mari](https://archiveofourown.org/users/starstrung) and [Cat](https://archiveofourown.org/users/indigostohelit) for fueling this with their collective Frank-based misery. Truly, I appreciate it.
> 
> Frank insists on talking to Matt instead of Karen.

The restraints will hold. Matt has a hard time picking out different sounds against the background of hospital rush at the best of times, the faint creak of wheels and the electric hum of monitoring devices and the endless restless quiet, but he can hear the straps and the cuffs, the sticky shift of the plastic ties at Frank’s wrists — the sticky shift of the bones in Frank’s foot — the way that Frank’s breathing catches just a little, wet, on every exhale, on the blood in the back of his throat. Once Matt notices, he can’t help but listen, conducting an inventory of injury by proxy. Matt knows that he shouldn’t think about it, should be thinking about precedent and an insanity plea and, at the very least, how he’ll structure his opening statement, but he can’t put it aside; he can’t ignore Frank’s steady heartbeat, or the old-copper smell of drying blood, or the way that Frank hasn’t moved since the door opened.

There’s something in that, in the way that Frank is just waiting, even though Foggy is running him through his options and has been doing so since they came into the room, practically before the door closed behind them. Frank lies there and listens to all of it; Matt tracks his heartbeat, the way that it picks up a little when Foggy mentions extradition and the way that it picks up even more when he mentions Reyes, and the way that it doesn’t slow down even when Foggy starts going through vigilante precedent. There isn’t a lot. Frank is thinking, or bored out of his mind: either way, he’s considering his options, probably, breathing a little faster by the time that Foggy runs out of breath and legalese. Karen shifts behind him, heels scuffing faintly, and shuffles her papers.

“Murdock,” Frank says, in the sudden silence. “I want to talk to Murdock.”

“What?” Karen says.

“No,” Foggy says. “No way. We’re an all-or-nothing deal. You won’t plead guilty, that’s your problem, but that means you have to play by our rules. Back me up here, Matt.”

“Fine,” Matt says, and everyone turns to him but Frank: Foggy exhales, exasperated; Karen’s much more quiet about it, but equally abrupt in her movement. Frank doesn’t move at all. Matt holds up one hand. “Seriously,” he says. “If this is going to trial, we need all the help we can get, right? I’ll catch you up afterwards. Foggy, can you ask around, see if we find get anything on Reyes? Leverage, mishandled cases, anything we can use.”

“Wait, what?” Foggy says. “Seriously? You don’t want us to, I don’t know, wait outside or something?”

“I’ll be fine,” Matt says. “I’ll meet you back at the office.”

Karen doesn’t say anything. She seems to consider it, for a moment, the beginning of a syllable caught on her breath, and then nods or shakes her head. “Okay,” she says. “I can go through those files, see if she has any conflict of interest or whatever.”

“Thank you,” Matt says, and her heart rate picks up a little at that.

“No problem,” she says, and Matt waits until the door closes behind them to cross the room, not pausing until he’s standing by the head of the bed, well over the line.

“Murdock,” Frank says, and looks up at him. “You take a lot of cases like this, huh? Lost causes?”

“We believe that everyone deserves a fair trial,” Matt says, like rote, like a catechism, justice for its own joy and its own sake. “Your public defender was going to roll over and let Reyes do whatever she wanted. That isn’t justice. That’s revenge.”

Frank snorts. “Sounds familiar.”

Matt shrugs. “The justice system is only as good as the people who uphold it,” he says. “We shouldn’t use justice for our own ends; we should serve the system and the idea.”

“Wow. Real pretty,” Frank says. “So what if I don’t want justice, huh? You think of that?” He shifts, a little, must be trying to shrug despite the restraints. “You know what they say. Live by the sword, right?”

“If you want us to walk away, you can dismiss us,” Matt says. “If you want to set that precedent — and you don’t strike me as the type, but — you’re well within your rights to, shall we say, kneel for the blade yourself. Mr. Castle,” he says, and knows that he shouldn’t be doing this, shouldn’t be listening to Frank’s heartbeat and pushing when it speeds up, shouldn’t be taking advantage like this and crossing all sorts of lines. “If you want to die, you can do that on your own time. But if you really want justice — if you really want to prove a point and make a difference — then we’re the only ones on your side.” He gestures. “You don’t exactly have a lot of options here.”

For a moment, Frank is silent, and Matt listens to the slowing rush of his heartbeat and his breath, the rustle of the sheets as Frank shifts to track him. “I’ve heard about you,” Frank says, finally. “Neighborhood boy, right? Kid next door, made good. Go on,” he says, and must be looking right at Matt now, voice clear and direct, chin tilted up. “You want this case, you can have it, but you take a good look and tell me what you think first.”

Matt doesn’t reach out — he doesn’t remember it, anyway, and he wouldn’t push like that, wouldn’t take advantage — but he does. He must: Frank is restrained, nothing but his words as compulsion, so it must be Matt who moves, who traces the arc of Frank’s orbital, the tackiness of dry blood and the slight shift of bone under his fingertips, structure and swelling and the sort of deep contusion that aches for days.

He presses, then, from the force of long habit. Matt is used to doing this for himself, a way of evaluating damage and reminding himself of the stakes, and so he does it for Frank as well, without questioning the impulse. Over Frank’s cheekbone, the bridge of his nose — above the bone, where the skin is thinnest — Matt pushes, and is only vaguely disappointed when he isn’t rewarded with pain. Instead, he listens to Frank’s breathing and tracks his pulse by touch — less responsive than Matt would be, but that’s just as well — he doesn’t want to be kind, after all. Justice is not about kindness.

“See?” Frank says, and they could be talking about case law or the weather for all that his voice stays perfectly even. “Nobody’s going to look at that and say, oh, he’s a good kid, just made some bad choices.” He tilts his head so that Matt is pressing harder, fingertips slipping a little towards Frank’s eye, and grins, enough that Matt can feel it. “Go on. Tell me this is about justice again, Murdock.”

Matt doesn’t want to do it — whatever this is, whatever the pain means to Frank, whatever it means to let himself touch Frank like this — so he holds Frank still instead, hand at the nape of his neck, thumb digging into the hinge of his jaw, and presses directly under the bone. “It’s about doing what’s right,” Matt says. “It’s about giving you a fair shot.”

Frank laughs, again, an ugly sound halfway to a snarl, and Matt wants to shake him. Matt wants to dig his fingers into Frank’s bruises again, and press at his fractures, and not let up until Frank says: yes, this is right; yes, this is what he wants; yes, Matt is doing the right thing.

It’s an ugly thought, too, and Matt lets go.

“Sure,” Frank says, that same ugliness in his voice, and Matt thinks that he must be grinning. “Doing what’s right.” He snorts. “Want me to say it all pretty? Yes, sir, I just need you to show me what’s right and tell me how to act and what I want? I can do that.” He shifts, and Matt flinches back on reflex. “Sounds to me like that’s more your problem than mine.”

“I don’t—” Matt starts, and tries to collect himself, falls back on rote and routine and what he knows he should say. It isn’t what he wants, not even close, but then Matt isn’t new to self-denial, particularly when it comes to the impulses he’s tried to beat out of himself. All claws and teeth and vicious want, and the knowledge that if he ever gives in, it’ll be that much harder to come back from it: Matt’s used to that. “—I’m not going to tell you what to do,” he says, finally.

“Sure,” Frank says again. “Guess I don’t have a lot of options, right?”

“Not really,” Matt says, and doesn’t think about that — doesn’t think about what it means, doesn’t think about what he wants, doesn’t think about what Frank wants him to say — and turns away.

“Murdock!” Frank calls after him, and Matt pauses. “You want this? It’s yours. Get me that fair shot,” he says. “I’m all yours.”

Matt inclines his head. “Thank you,” he says, and realizes that he means it — as if it’s somehow a privilege to carry Frank’s guilt as well as his own, the equivalent weight of his regret and anger and determination — and doesn’t wait to see if Frank knows, as well.

He probably does; Matt doesn’t need to give him the satisfaction. He leaves without another word, and listens to Frank’s heartbeat — slow and strong and steady — until it fades with distance.

Frank isn’t scared of him, with or without the mask; Matt wants to change that. He doesn’t want to give Frank that satisfaction, either — acknowledgement of the way that they’re more alike than not, and of their common monstrosity, a birthright of anger and pain and violence and an inability to do anything but direct it — but he wants Frank to look at him and understand that as well. Matt wants Frank to see him as he is, but there’s no coming back from that: it’s the sort of freedom that Matt will not permit himself, because it would mean that he enjoys what he does.

Matt can’t do that. He can’t let himself have that. Back on the sidewalk, he lets the rush of the street — footsteps and heartbeats and the shifting heat of the summer — carry him away, and doesn’t think at all.

 

* * *

 

They never make it to trial. The summer does that, makes people restless, fills the whole city — streets to subway to skyline — with an uneasy energy, the imminence of a storm that never comes. In Frank’s wake, Matt goes out night after night, and keeps waiting for something to break: the weather or the uneasy peace of a sudden power vacuum, whichever goes first, but neither does. Instead, he looks for trouble and comes up empty, listens for shattering glass or the screech of tires and thinks that maybe he’ll be the one to snap.

He misses Claire, but then that hadn’t been his choice, and she had always been right about him anyway. Matt brings nothing but trouble and pain to the people who care about him, doesn’t know how to do anything but fight or flee and hurt anyone who tries to help. Claire had never said it like that — _climb down off that cross, Matt_ — but she’d meant it, in the way that she laughed and never quite expected him to understand. Matt thinks, these days, that she had been right about that too: he doesn’t understand, and he never will. That first night, waking up on her sofa, he’d been struck by the busyness of her apartment, the keepsakes on the shelves and the pattern worn into the carpet and, later, the window box on her fire escape, dry soil waiting for a summer storm.

For all that Matt has silk sheets and a wine rack and high ceilings, he’s never made the mistake of assuming that he’ll be allowed to keep them. Matt has never lived in his apartment as if it won’t be taken away any moment, as if he won’t have to pick up and run; he has never made the mistake of caring about anything that he could lose, no matter how hard he tries. Claire’s apartment had been lived-in and loved, and Matt had thought that he could share in that, had indulged himself for a week and then another and then come to his senses. He misses Claire, but she’s better off without him.

Frank breaks out of the hospital, anyway: someone gets a box cutter into his hand, and he cuts the plastic ties — slices up his wrist in the process, if the blood drying on the linoleum is anything to go by — and breaks a resident’s leg in two places and disappears into the restless summer night. So they never go to trial, and Reyes calls Matt and Foggy and Karen into her office and reads them the riot act so that she has plausible deniability, and Matt takes up his post over the precinct house and listens to the scanner, night after night, and waits for something to change.

When it finally comes, it’s the weather, after two awful weeks of mugginess. Matt lurks in the dubious shelter of a water tower, climbs up far enough that he’s shielded from the worst of the storm, and listens as windows open: it’s a real summer storm, thunder cracking through the sky, and Matt can practically feel the tension breaking. The rain sweeps through and leaves clarity in its wake, cuts the humidity and leaves the night bearable, and so of course the scanners light up. Some concerned neighbor is reporting suspicious activity on a rooftop over on Tenth, two blocks from the river — close to the piers — and nobody ever looks up in the rain, so anyone working the Port Authority beat won’t be expecting trouble.

Matt climbs from one building to the next, and they’re all projects for a block or two, so that’s easy going, but he nearly slips on the last ledge and ends up on a fire escape two stories below, which is — worse and better at the same time. Bruised ribs, anyway — but he’s close enough, and he takes the last story hand-over-hand up a drainpipe and takes stock as well as he can in the lessening downpour. Glass, some sort of solar or skylight, if the faint ringing at the corner of his hearing is anything to go by; the rustle of foliage, so that must be a rooftop garden; concrete tile underfoot, and the percussion of rain on an awning, and one steady, sure heartbeat on the other side of the roof: Matt knows who that is.

“Plenty of room,” Frank calls, and Matt reminds himself: Frank doesn’t know who he is. Frank doesn’t care. He crosses the roof, careful not to stumble on the edge of the tiling or slip on the underlay, rain-slick, and crosses his arms.

“You’re not up here for a smoke,” he says.

Frank snorts. “Wow,” he says. “No wonder everyone’s scared of you. That’s some solid deductive reasoning you’ve got, Red. You do that for everyone you bring in, or am I special?”

“What are you doing?” Matt says. “Nobody’s out in weather like this. Got bored lying low? Taking potshots at the bus stop?”

Frank shrugs, sodden layers of fabric shifting. “Can’t a guy take a breather?” he asks. “Get some fresh air?”

“Battery and assault,” Matt says. “You’re in demand these days.”

“Sure,” Frank says, still friendly, voice still easy. “Who isn’t? You aren’t exactly popular yourself.”

“Come on,” Matt says. “We both know why you’re here.”

“Sure,” Frank says again, and moves before Matt can track him — between the rain and the wind and the roar of Lincoln Tunnel a few blocks south — and then he has Matt by the throat. There’s a wall at the edge of the roof, shoulder-high, and Frank pushes until Matt overbalances, can feel the tug of the slipstream at his back and can hear the sound of rain on the sidewalk far below. “What about you, Red?” he asks, just as friendly, just as unconcerned. “You don’t strike me as the smoking sort. What are you doing?”

Matt gasps for air, and thinks: what is he doing? Bringing Frank in, that’s the right answer, making the streets a little bit safer for the people who live and work and come home to them, day after difficult day; New York might not belong to anyone, but Matt knows who he belongs to, at the end of the day, neon current buzzing through the rain and the subway rumbling far below, that’s an answer too; but Matt doesn’t want to be right. He wants Frank to see him as he is. He wants to be lived-in, claws and teeth and viciousness and all. “Same thing as you,” Matt says, finally, when he’s almost out of breath. “Looking for a fight.”

Frank hauls him back over the edge of the roof and drops him, and Matt barely manages to catch himself, gloves scraping against the surfacing.

“Yeah, well,” Frank says. “Go find one somewhere else. Some of us are working.”

Matt, still on his knees, looks up, tracks Frank’s voice and the way that he’s already turning, and thinks: he doesn’t want to be right. He wants, just once, to be greedy, to want without denying himself, or without worrying about who he’ll hurt this time.

Frank doesn’t seem like the sort to mind, anyway.

“Please,” Matt says, fumbling at the cowl, the fastenings of his armor, and Frank turns again. He doesn’t care — it doesn’t matter — Matt wants, so badly, to be seen; he wants to be a little less careful, and to give Frank the chance to hurt him, and to see what Frank does with it. He tugs the cowl off and lets it fall, runs one gloved hand through his hair and doesn’t move, and says again: “Please.”

“Look at you,” Frank says. “Not going to tell me what to do, huh?”

“Don’t,” Matt says, quiet, and Frank laughs.

“There you go again,” he says. “Don’t worry, Red. Like I said, I don’t care. You can play lawyer in your office and wear all the masks you want, but those rules don’t matter up here.” He steps closer, and Matt leans towards him — wants Frank’s hand in his hair, wants to bite at Frank’s fingers, wants to put up a fight and lose — and Frank adds: “All I know is you pack a hell of a punch, and you don’t care about fighting dirty.”

“Don’t make me ask,” Matt says, voice low and rough.

“Or what?” Frank says. “You’ll do it?” He tangles his fingers in Matt’s hair and pulls, hard enough that Matt’s eyes sting. “Go on,” he adds, and Matt doesn’t need to be told twice. He undoes Frank’s belt, gloves making him clumsy, and Frank pulls again. “No hands.”

That’s harder — Matt likes to be able to track reactions through touch, likes to feel the shape of muscle under skin, and bone beneath both — but Matt lets his hands fall to his sides, fists clenched, and lets Frank guide him. He bites at the cut of Frank’s hip, more muscle than bone, just to see what Frank will do, and Frank backhands him, a solid blow that leaves Matt’s ears ringing and knocks him off balance before Frank hauls him back up. “Cute,” he says, and Matt wants to hide his face, but Frank won’t let him. “You like that?” he asks, and Matt twists and tries to snap at his hand in earnest this time. Frank shakes him a little. “Yeah,” he says, and presses his thumb to Matt’s mouth, pries Matt’s jaw open and lets Matt bite at his knuckles, the smooth skin of torn calluses and old scars. “Real cute.”

“Come on,” Matt says, or tries to, and Frank laughs.

“Alright,” he says, yanking Matt’s head back, and doesn’t bother to warn him beyond that before he presses forward, cock heavy on Matt’s tongue, hand tight in Matt’s hair, and — finally — that’s what Matt wants. To be on his knees, to be held in place, to know that if he struggles Frank will hurt him, and that he can let Frank see him like this: Matt wants it so much that it must be bad, must be wrong, and that just makes him want it more.

Frank isn’t gentle, and he doesn’t let Matt move. He lets Matt breathe, every so often, and then fucks his throat until Matt is gasping for air; he doesn’t talk much, either, so Matt doesn’t know how he’s doing — if he’s good enough — and has to trust Frank, his rough hands and the set of his feet and what he can hear of Frank’s heartbeat over the rain. Trust doesn’t come particularly easily to Matt, but he hasn’t given himself any other choice, and so he listens to Frank’s rough breathing and gasps for breath when he can and takes it as best he can.

Matt wonders if this is what Frank would have been like if he’d asked that first night, if he’d said it all pretty — and he remembers Frank saying that, leaning into his hand in the hospital, all restrained strength, _tell me how to act and what I want_ — and Matt wonders, then, what would have happened if he’d pushed. He wonders if Frank would have done this, too, for him, and if it would have felt any different, and doesn’t think so. Even holding Frank by the throat, even with his fingertips digging into Frank’s eye socket, there’s never been any question about it. They might both be beyond saving, but Frank has never been afraid of the darkness — in himself, or in Matt, or in the simple absence of hope — and Matt always has.

On his knees like this, it doesn’t matter if he trusts himself or not: one shot, one kill. Matt might not trust Frank to be right, but he trusts Frank to know what he wants. It’s close enough, and if what Frank wants from Matt is this — if what Frank wants is to push Matt to his knees and hold him down and use him until his jaw aches and his throat is rough — then that’s simple. It’s enough for Matt.

It’s enough for Matt to let Frank fuck his mouth, and come down his throat, and wait for permission to move. Frank doesn’t let Matt pull away until he’s licked Frank clean, and then Frank steps away and does up his belt, doesn’t shove Matt down or hit him again or kick him in the ribs. Frank doesn’t touch Matt at all for a long moment, and then he kneels and brushes Matt’s hair out of his face — clumsy but gentle, as if he isn’t quite sure of how to touch someone when he isn’t trying to hurt them — and that’s even worse. Matt doesn’t know how to be touched when it doesn’t hurt. He doesn’t flinch away, just holds still in case that’ll make it stop any sooner, and Frank rubs at the corner of Matt’s mouth with his thumb, a little rougher this time, as if he understands.

“Hey,” he says, and puts his hand — warm, despite the rain, despite the peripheral wind off the river — on Matt’s knee, slides it up his thigh. “Let me.”

“It’s fine,” Matt says, and Frank pauses. “It’s fine,” he says, again, and gets to his feet, leaving Frank kneeling. He could ask, if he wanted, could put his hand on the back of Frank’s neck, could push and see what Frank does.

He won’t, though. Matt’s gotten what he wants out of tonight: the rain is clearing, and the humidity will be back by morning, and the city is as quiet as it ever gets — between the storm and the time, the low rumble of newspaper delivery trucks and the wide empty avenues — and it’s the closest he’ll get to any sort of rest, if he goes home, if he lets himself.

Frank shrugs and gets up, walks back to the edge of the roof. He isn’t armed, as far as Matt can tell, no click of metal at his ankle and no harsh edges to the shift of his jacket. “Suit yourself,” he calls back, and Matt hears the click of a lighter, the hiss as Frank inhales.

“Still working?” Matt says, and Frank laughs.

“Why?” he says. “You only care when I’m on the clock? No, man. I’m just up here for the view.” He exhales, and for a moment Matt remembers New York as it was a lifetime ago, the smell and the grey and the stickiness of the air, all exhaust fumes and smoke. For Frank, he thinks, it hasn’t changed. “Go home,” Frank says. “Missed my window anyway, thanks to you. That’s some mouth you’ve got on you, Red.”

“If you hurt anyone—” Matt starts, and Frank laughs again.

“I know,” he says. “You’ll find out. Sure.”

“—You know I will,” Matt says, and turns to go.

“Sure,” Frank says, again, and waits until Matt is halfway across the roof to call after him. “Hey, Red!”

Matt pauses.

“Be seeing you, then,” Frank says, and Matt listens hard for the hiss as he flips his cigarette into a puddle.

From Frank, it’s as good as a promise.

 

* * *

 

It’s a week and a half after that — the clarity of the storm is long gone; the nights are restless again and the days almost unbearable — and Reyes is still looking for a scapegoat, someone to fire or subject to public humiliation, so Matt’s working late. He goes through their files once, and then again, goes back through all their correspondence with Reyes’ office and the records of their conversations with Frank, from that first meeting to his guilty plea and the few exchanged they’d managed before his escape.

Reyes won’t find anything, because there’s nothing for her to find, but that doesn’t seem like it’ll stop her, so Matt wants to make sure that he knows their case inside and out. She likes to steamroll her opponents, flatten them before they even know what’s happening so that they don’t have a chance to push back; if he can contest any allegations before she gathers momentum, then they should be safe. They can get through this.

It takes him a moment, then, worn thin by too many late nights, to realize that someone’s been knocking for a while, and Matt bumps his hip on the corner of the desk when he gets up. He isn’t sleeping particularly well, either, not since the midsummer heat set back in, and it probably shows. “Coming,” he calls, and fumbles with the lock for a moment before he gets the door open. “Nelson and Murdock. We aren’t actually open, but we might have a slot available tomorrow if you come back early.” It filters through his exhaustion, then: a slow, strong heartbeat, and the shift of heavy fabric. Frank carries his mass with a certain awareness, and Matt can feel it in the way he moves and takes up space.

“So which one are you?” Frank says, and Matt steps back, lets him in. “Let me guess. You’re Page.”

“Sorry to disappoint,” Matt says, and closes the door. “You can’t be here.”

“I’ll live,” Frank says, and stops in the middle of the room, lets Matt recenter the space around him. “Says who?”

“District Attorney Reyes, actually,” Matt says. “And the entire police department, and about half of the remaining population of New York. Give me one good reason I shouldn’t hand you over.”

“We shared a moment,” Frank says. “Unless you forgot.”

“You said you didn’t care,” Matt says, and gestures, indicating his face.

“And I don’t,” Frank says. He moves, then, takes a step forward, and Matt holds his ground, listens to the way that the floor creaks as Frank shifts his center of gravity and braces for a blow that doesn’t come. Frank takes another step, and recenters himself again: steady, Matt thinks, steady-handed and sharp-eyed. No wonder he’d taken such pride in each kill. “Seems to me I owe you one, though.” He takes another step, and Matt finally backs away, too close to the wall as it is. One more step and he’ll be cornered, and Frank says: “How about it, Red?”

It doesn’t matter, Matt realizes. He’s cornered already.

He doesn’t expect it, then, when Frank steps forward and catches Matt’s wrist and goes to his knees. “Go on,” he says, and guides Matt’s hand to the back of his head; Matt runs his fingers over the exposed curve of Frank’s skull, where his hair is cropped close, traces the lines of tension at the nape of his neck where kneeling doesn’t come easily to him.

Matt takes a moment just to touch, to learn the way that Frank resists, for a moment, when he pushes, and to see how Frank reacts when he digs his nails in, and then he tightens his grip, forcing Frank’s head down.

“You going to tell me, then?” Frank asks. “Going to tell me what to do?”

“You know what to do,” Matt says, and even that doesn’t feel right, makes him feel awkward and out-of-place and, always, feral: as if he doesn’t know the rules yet and will never quite understand, no matter how hard he tries. Frank knows — he has to know — and that’s a relief, the realization that Frank must be playing with him even now, pushing Matt until he gives in. It’s a relief to be known, and recognized, and understood, as much as anybody can, even if it’s wrong.

“Close enough,” Frank says, and goes for Matt’s belt. “Hands? You want me to keep them behind my back?” He waits, long enough to make Matt feel uncomfortable, and then laughs. “Spare you the trouble,” he says. “You want me to hold you back, don’t you.”

“Yeah,” Matt breathes, and Frank pauses again, and Matt thinks: he’s damned anyway. “Yes,” he says, lets the edge of a snarl creep into his voice, and digs his nails into the nape of Frank’s neck. For the most part, the bruising along Frank’s cheekbone seems to have faded — the swelling is gone, and the grinding of bone chips is much fainter — but when Matt presses, when he digs his fingertips in, Frank hisses.

“That’s better,” he says, and tugs at Matt’s trousers, digs his thumbs into Matt’s hips and pins him to the wall.

“Go on,” Matt says, because he knows what Frank expects of him.

Matt can hear Frank’s grin, then, when he says: “There you go. Not so hard, was it?”

He doesn’t get a chance to answer: Frank doesn’t waste time on pleasantries, just wraps one hand around the base of Matt’s cock and gets to work. Frank sucks cock as if he doesn’t have a lot of practice, and knows it, and doesn’t care; he’s messy and sloppy and not particularly quiet, and Matt likes it, God help him. He likes the way that Frank sounds, and he likes the way that Frank’s grip doesn’t let up, and he likes the way that, for all that Frank might the one on his knees, he never lets Matt forget that he’s the one who pushed Matt to this, who wouldn’t let Matt back down until he showed his teeth.

It’s a relief, but not as much as Frank’s sheer mass, the breadth of his shoulders and the way that Matt can feel fingerprint bruises on his hips already. Frank doesn’t hesitate, doesn’t pause to see if it’s too much or if Matt can take it: the force of his grip, and the pace that he sets, and — shockingly bright — the scrape of his teeth. After the first time, Matt can’t tell if Frank is doing it on purpose or just doesn’t care; that’s good too. It’s better than he’d like to admit.

When Frank loosens his grip a little, tries to open his throat and fails, and chokes, Matt gasps and shoves against Frank’s hands. He knows what that feels like, the way that Frank’s eyes must be stinging and the way that he must be desperate for air, and he wants to do it again. Matt wants to see if Frank will just take it or hold him back.

Frank takes it, and Matt likes that best of all.

He knows that Frank sees it, too, and understands what it means. Frank knows Matt, knows him at his worst — sees the viciousness and the darkness that Matt keeps for himself — and knows the secret self that might be, in the end, the best of him.

Matt thinks that, if he asked, Frank might agree. It’s a vicious thought, a nasty corrupt suspicion, and it settles in Matt’s spine and winds its way down like a truth that he just won’t admit.

From then — from the moment that Matt realizes, and tries to think of anything else, and fails — it isn’t long until Matt is coming, gasping and digging welts into the nape of Frank’s neck, and Frank sits back and coughs. “See?” he says, and Matt realizes: he’s waiting. Frank has no idea what Matt will say, or how he’ll respond, and he has to wait and hope.

“Sure,” Matt says, voice rough. “Guess we’re even.”

“If you want,” Frank says, and gets to his feet. “Calling it quits while you’re ahead, huh.”

He’s fucked, Matt realizes. He’s cornered — he invited Frank in, and let Frank see him, and let Frank know him — and he’s exactly where he wants to be, with no good options left. Matt has always wanted to ruin himself, to find an excuse to fall: it has never been a matter of knowing what he’ll choose, but one of having the choice to begin with.

Given easy ruination or difficult virtue, Matt knows what he’ll pick every time. At night — listening to the heartbeat of the city, concrete and glass and steel and the endless rush of light and life — it’s easier to ignore. Without a mask, without a way to hide, Matt no longer has any excuse: with Frank here, still waiting, heartbeat as steady as ever, he doesn’t want one.

“I don’t know,” he says. “You might still owe me one.”

Frank laughs, and his pulse picks up a little: it might be excitement rather than fear, but Matt will take what he can get.

“You wish,” he says, and shifts: less centered, more fluid, ready to move. Matt doesn’t bother to track him, doesn’t care what he’s about to do. It doesn’t matter. Frank hesitates a moment longer, and then says: “Got a fire escape?”

“Door behind you,” Matt says. “Watch out for the third step.”

“Thanks,” Frank says, and Matt hears the creak as he opens the window and then the hiss as he slides up the screen. “Don’t wait up.”

“Close the window,” Matt calls, but Frank is already gone.

He still has a choice. Of course he does: every morning, every day of his life, every night when the city goes dark, Matt has to choose. Every time, he knows what he’ll pick; one day, he won’t be able to cheat, won’t be able to steal moments away from himself like this. One day he won’t be able to find his way back to the light. One day the city will turn on him, unkind in its justice, and pull him to pieces; one day the streets will splinter beneath him and let him fall through the cracks and into the endless empty nothingness below.

For now, though, it’ll hold. For now, Matt doesn’t have to choose: doesn’t have to be right or wrong, doesn’t even have to be himself, doesn’t have to be anything at all. For now, that’s enough.


End file.
